A claim that the Nigerian Army is using old pictures to portray a recent achievement is circulating on the internet.
The claim originated from an X user, @unkleAyo, who quoted a post by the Nigerian Army announcing the rescue of two kidnapped victims and the recovery of ransom. The Army’s post was made on Monday, November 3, 2025.
The claimant attached a screenshot of a Google Lens search result showing several previous appearances of the same image, alleging that the Nigerian Army had recycled old photos to create a new narrative.
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Accompanying the screenshot was a caption that read:
You people have rolled back to snatching random pictures from the internet & reporting it as rescue updates. How are you reporting updates from 9 months ago? What level of incompetence have you descended to? God, WHY DID YOU BRING ME HERE?
CLAIM
Nigerian Army uses old pictures to represent recent feats
THE FINDINGS
Findings by The FactCheckHub show that the claim is FALSE!
When the claimant’s image was closely examined, it showed that the post being referred to allegedly made nine months ago, was originally shared by an X user, @bummiearo.
However, a search through the user’s handle revealed no such post since January. The user also publicly denied making the post.
“Please stop lying against me. I never posted such an image. Why can’t you search through my posts from January till date?”, Bummiearo stated.
The Nigerian Army has also debunked the claim, clarifying that the images were recent. In an official statement, the Army noted that metadata attached to the photos confirmed the date, time, and location of the rescue operation.
According to the statement:
Troops of 12 Brigade deployed at Forward Operating Base (FOB) Oguma on 2 November 2025 successfully rescued two kidnapped victims, and images from the operation were duly released through an official Nigerian Army press statement. Regrettably, certain unpatriotic elements have circulated doctored and misleading versions of these photos, falsely alleging that they were recycled from an earlier incident—an entirely baseless and malicious claim.
Further checks by The FactCheckHub showed that when the image was subjected to a Google Lens search, it returned results from eight months to over a year ago, including posts from the Nigerian Army’s official Instagram page. However, clicking on the linked results led to unrelated content, indicating that the visual match did not correspond with the actual context of the photos.
READ ALSO : Why you should not trust every screenshot
How Google Lens works
Google Lens uses a combination of computer vision, optical character recognition (OCR), and natural language processing (NLP) to analyse images. It identifies objects, translates text, and finds visually similar items by comparing images to Google’s vast web database.
While Google Lens and standard Google Search may return similar results, differences can occur due to factors like time, context, and personalisation. Lens focuses on visual matches, while Google Search relies on textual and contextual signals such as metadata, location, and user history.
For example, Google Lens might correctly identify a rare plant, but the linked webpage could be a general gardening site mentioning that plant among others, broadening the search context.
Differences can also arise if an image is complex or low-quality, causing Lens to misinterpret the main subject. The initial preview might be based on the system’s most probable guess, but clicking the link engages a more complex search engine that might not confirm that guess, resulting in different results.
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THE VERDICT
The claim that the Nigerian Army uses old pictures to represent recent feats is false; the Army’s official statement confirms that the pictures were taken during a recent rescue operation on November 2, 2025. Although a Google Lens search returned older results, these were unrelated and based on visual similarities rather than the actual context of the images.
Seasoned fact-checker and researcher Fatimah Quadri has written numerous fact-checks, explainers, and media literacy pieces for The FactCheckHub in an effort to combat information disorder. She can be reached at sunmibola_q on X or fquadri@icirnigeria.org.
